Are we getting desensitized?

Training discussion on Are we getting desensitized?, within the Bodybuilding Forum; In every forum's life, there's always certain elements that will come to pass. The biggest and baddest being the repetition ...

Route B: What makes this forum great -> Take a few minutes to go over what they post and try to provide something remotely helpful.

* "You know, if you're new to lifting you shouldn't do a full blown split... AND HERE'S WHY"
* "You should spend some time bringing up your strength levels on your big three instead of using all that volume... BECAUSE.."
* "Click on this link since this topic has been covered"

I'm not saying anyone should cow tow and write three page writeups to every query. If you look at the first year of this forum, topics get covered thoroughly, and everyone has something to add. Nowadays, it seems that a lot of us just get bored with the same repetitive questions where the answers snowball from "try doing this and that" to "click on search" or "re-read the stickies". The mission of this forum isn't to get 10,000 members who either are afraid to post (many are as per my pm's), or who don't bother signing in to view all the info. One of the goals is to have a lot of active members who like to participate in these discussions, which really add to the content of the forum. LOL, pretty soon you'll have 5 active users, 900 guests currently online.

Anyways, I'm sure everyone agrees to some degree with the content of this forums posting lately... I'm sure I have a few posts that add to the problem as well lol. I guarantee you'll be seeing another 10 threads about growing arms or HVT within the next year... If anything, everyone should be a pro by then.

Last edited by Darkhorse; 07-28-2007 at 01:37 AM..

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Also, as some people may be quick to point out, I'm NOT telling ANYONE what to post! My point is that if someone wants help, give them actual help vs. "read the stickies because the answer is burried somewhere in there".

This was part of what I was trying to allude to when I expressed doubts about the requiring stickies to be read. I don't know if I was right about that particular point but what you have just said is the kind of thing I was trying to express. Well said and timely.

And as 0311 stated, I'm not saying I've never been part of the problem

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If you act sanctimonious I will just list out your logical fallacies until you get pissed off and spew blasphemous remarks.

As always Eric, your posts are as welcome as your presence! This is long overdue.

Am I saying experienced members should spoonfeed everyone? Not at all, but I don't believe the answer should always essentially be to figure shit out on their own by reading through all the stickies. While I agree to some extent with that, I thought that's what an bodybuilding forum was all about? Breaking down difficult to follow aspects of bodybuilding for Joe Average? I think everyone sorta forgets from time to time that there's a "vast majority" out there that hasn't ever seen these forums and "truths", only read a few Flex magazines or heard second hand bullshit from the lifter to his/her left or right. In addition, to a lot of beginners in general, those stickies go against EVERYTHING they have learned from the magazines. I'm guessing many of them think it's bullshit since Coleman and Cutler don't follow the stickies.. And look how they turned out LOL. I think it's up to US to guide them through the learning process without indirectly saying, "Go find the answer elsewhere."

If I was a newbie to this forum, and asked what people view as simple questions, I would hope for something that answers my question(s) vs. feeling like everyone "ganging up on me" and telling me to basically figure it out on my own.

One of the things I think that makes people do that is, quite frankly, many new and beginning members have a disrespectful attitude. When I say disrespectful I don't mean they fail to cow-tow to the other members but that they have a kind of disregard to just how much work it takes to, for instance, help develop a diet, for any one particular person.

So you have people who basically come in not willing to do even a minimum for themselves and are pretty much expecting personal training services at one extreme and on the other end a person who simply has something happening that they don't understand like "why is everything getting big but my arms?". But that person gets the some of the frustration that really should only be reserved for the former.

I think it is important that everyone keep in mind the basic defintion of the word "forum".

Desensitized is just the right word. All I have to do is think back on just how confused I have been in the past and what I was led to do. This stuff, when you first start out, can be greek. And frankly, most people outside of it think that you go lift weights and wake up with bigger muscles.

How about this solution: all members get together and make a long writeup to answer the most basic of new member's questions such as "I've been training on and off for years, now I'm ready to get serious, where should I start?" then copy and save the writeup and paste that answer to every new member who asks that same generic question? Then the new member will feel like we're paying special attention to him/her instead of directing him/her to read a myriad of information in the stickies and decide the best workout plan, being inexperience as he/she is.

Any thoughts on this?

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"The iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you're a god or a total bastard. The iron will always kick you the real deal. The iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends come and go, but 200 pounds is always 200 pounds."

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